March 22

Happy Holi! A festival where everyone ends up covered in bright colored paint/powder, in part to assure good weather as I understand it. It’s equinox so it must be a fertility ritual of sorts (actually there is a whole complicated story about Hindu gods). Had to buy a cheap t-shirt just in case I got dusted. Without doubt, the most heavily covered revelers seem to be young children and tourists. They set up a stage outside my hotel in Pokhara and the band played covers– everything from Daft Punk to Rage Against the Machine. Of course all my hiking buddies showed up in their technicolor selves. A day full of smiles–a characteristic of the Nepalis.

T. Hugh Crawford